It is rather childish to read in the newspapers that the Irrigation Department Engineers' Union has found a scapegoat in the Sri Lanka Administrative Service for the professionals' inability to impress with the rulers of the day. If the Government places trust with the SLAS it is solely on judgement from experience from performance upto now and has nothing to do with the sort the IDEU accuses the SLS of.
It is upto the professionals to perform in their fields and win credibility with the Government rather than taking cover behind the tags of various professional bodies. We are surprised to read the cheap stunt tried by the IDEU in trying to get dragged into the Government's privatization programme and pose as saviours of the nation because it is common knowledge that the privatization programme came into effect since these Organizations were mismanaged by the so-called professionals when entrusted with management.
All know by now why the professionals are clamouring for administrative posts. It is the only thing done by most of the professionals nowadays. In the Irrigation Department we have the bitter experience of having professionals managing the administrative posts for sometime. We are yet to get over the rude shock which left the Department in shambles causing lot of pain in the minds of various categories of officers depriving them of their due promotions, appointments and transfers, not filling vacancies in cadres and the whole lot of delays and neglect.
Really nothing could be worked out without having to fight for it. All this led to frustration in all, mostly all categories which really affected the performance of the Department. This could be clearly seen by anyone who has knowledge of progress of projects undertaken by the Department in the recent past.
It is time that the professionals leave all administrative posts with administrators who are trained for it and get back to the professional fields in which they are trained and perform well and earn credibility.
We do not want to contest here the rightness or the wrongness of Fr. Tissa Balasuriya's writings. But we do regret that his sincere efforts in the direction of a fresh and deeper understanding of the role of Mary and her place in Christian theology should have met with such extreme condemnation.
None can claim that the Church has reached the limits of understanding in regard to the role and place of Mary or for that matter, of original sin. These are subjects in which over the years, through research and study, greater insights and understandings have developed. It is in the interest of the whole Church that such development should take place.
If such non-definitive studies (which could be in book form) are deemed by Church authority to constitute a danger to faith, or liable to cause confusion in religious beliefs among Catholics, the obvious remedy would be to warn off lay persons from reading it - which has been done.
However, to go further and apply the extreme penalty of excommunication to the author is to our minds a measure terribly harsh. As our hierarchy have already noted, one who refuses to accept the doctrines of Christianity de facto excommunicates himself. Fr. Balasuriya claims loyalty to the Church. Can't we leave it to God to judge how far Fr. Balasuriya has distanced himself from the Church?
In the history of the Church, excommunications have not always had the happiest of results. Often, bitterness and division have followed in their wake. The present crisis appears to have hurt the Church more than Fr. Balasuriya. Where no division existed priests and laymen are seen to take sides. There are accusations and counter accusations. Distortion and untruths are creeping into the picture. The book which hardly any one cared to read, is, thanks to the media and twentieth century communication facilities, now known internationally.
Was this kind of repercussion anticipated? If not, it should have been. We are living in the twentieth century - not five hundred years ago. It is all very sad - sad for the Church and its damaged image and sad for Fr. Balasuriya. It is sad for Fr. Balasuriya because we have come to understand the Church as a community of love - the love of Jesus Christ its head and founder, who called himself the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. Who, if one sheep is lost in the wilderness would lovingly go after it and bring it back to the fold with rejoicing. Fr. Balasuriya does not seem to be at the receiving end of that kind of love.
Today we have a scenario, where a sheep who is deemed to have lost his way is isolated from the fold. In his time of trial and spiritual desolation he is denied access to spiritual strength and renewal through reception of the sacraments. Are there not lesser punishments such as censure and suspension from certain priestly functions which might have been applied in this case?
We, the undersigned, being concerned members of the Catholic community who have sometime held office in Catholic lay movements would like to express our sadness at the excommunication of the long serving, hard working priest, Fr. Balasuriya from the Church. We are forced to ask the question: is it too late for reconciliation and the revocation of excommunication? We are forced to pray that for the good of the whole Church, excommunications of this sort will not be repeated.
The report of proceedings of the inauguration of the Sinhala Commission at Kandy appearing in The Sunday Times of February 2 carries a gross distortion of what I said on that occasion about the implementation of the Sirima-Shastri Pact.
I explained at some length that under the Pact the grant of Ceylon citizenship to a stipulated number of Indians was conditional upon a certain other number being repatriated to India; but that the legislation introduced by the Dudley Senanayake Government wrongfully removed the condition of repatriation and bound the Ceylon Government to granting Ceylon citizenship to the stipulated number of Indians merely upon the Indian Government granting citizenship to its quota irrespective of repatriation.
This has been incorrectly reported as "But the Senanayake Government had changed the proportion and Sri Lanka had to take a larger number."
You say this week, "if India created Sri Lanka's current internal problems, it must help resolve it". Two words strike me. "Created" and "current" - Who or what 'created' the Tamil/Sinhalese problem? Was it not purely Sri Lankan politics? The exclusive-politics of the assassinated Bandaranaike who seized political power on the "Sinhala only" language issue, and launched the bitter racial conflict which subsequently involved India? And the demand for a separate homeland? And a terrible war? Dare Sri Lanka lose sight of the roots?
As one born in Sri Lanka, I follow each week the newspapers with great interest. Sri Lanka is a country of almost unmatched beauty, both the land and the people; but self-serving politics? Power? Ambition? Greed? These are the evils that destroy the common longing for peace and stability. Don't we know it here in South Africa, where racism and ethnic evil reached its zenith since Hitler, and will take generations to repair?
My prayer is "May truth prevail in Sri Lanka". For the truth, and only the truth, understood, assimilated, will bring reconciliation and peace to its war torn shores. Yes, perhaps India must assist, but where is the Sri Lankan statesman who has the courage to rise above party politics and acknowledge the evils done in the name of politics and personal power? It is astonishing how the common people of all races respond to humility, and a clear moral stance, so rarely seen, amongst the powerful. Perhaps such a person may yet arise in Sri Lanka who will, above politics, unite the aspirations of all in his person. God grant it.
The article titled "Wake up to reality, S.L." in the Sunday Times of January 26 has asked S. L. Gunasekera to wake up. As far as I understand, the writer has got everything twisted about the notion of "Nation". Of course I do not even think that there was a Sri Lankan Nation in this country when the Portuguese, the Dutch and lastly the British overran us. What was existing was the Sinhala Nation, which had gradually degenerated and decimated due to repeated Chola and Pandya invasions spread over a period of 2000 years. It started with the two horse dealers Senaka and Gutthika who were the first invaders.
The writer does not seem to know the history of the Sinhala people, and cites an example from Scotland. His knowledge of British history appears to be equally wrong. He has forgotten about the Scot Robert Bruce who led them to victory against Edward. The famous lines:
"See approach proud Edward's power
Chains and slavery..." is not forgotten yet in Scotland.
No Scotsman ever voluntarily gave up his country. They had to surrender and come under the English Monarch.
To draw a parallel from this and apply it to the land of the Sinhala or Heladiva or Ceylon (which is a corruption of Sihalon) is an attempt to put the Sinhala people, who have nowhere else to go in this country to sleep. But the Sinhala people are waking up, so the writer had better go to sleep as he appears to have been awake all this time for the cause of the Tamil-nation and day dreaming about it.
I like to ask a simple question. Can two nations live on the same lane, same city, same district and same country? Certainly not. If the Tamils from Sri Lanka buy up enough property near No. 10 Downing Street and also win a seat, can they say they are a separate nation in England. It will be a matter of hours before they are arrested and either deported or put behind bars.
The Sinhala people never put the Tamils to the "Chains and Slavery" state as in the lines quoted. The majority of them are here today because after the wars the Sinhala Kings had with the invaders the Tamil people, including even the defeated soldiers were allowed to live "as they pleased." But this tolerance was misconstrued then and is now being used to enslave a Nation, the Sinhala that has a 2500 year history. Many people like Hot Spring have taken up the cause of the Tamils and forgotten the plight of the Sinhala. The Sinhala Buddhist children have no schools today, because the so called Sinhala rulers took them over, let us say Nationalized like the bus companies. Very few Christian schools were taken over. I am waiting for the day that the Government Schools will be peopolised, or privatised by one of the leading Sinhala political parties.
Coming to the case of Sinhala soldiers, I must say that the soldiers did not go there for fun. It started with the murder of an elected mayor. Those who sow the wind harvest the whirl wind. This is what happened to the Tamils. The perpetrators of separatism were the racists not the Sinhala people of this land which is the only land of theirs. It should be noted that a look at any international diary shows that Tamil is a Major Language in four countries whereas Sinahla is only in this tiny island.
The trouble in Sri Lanka did not start because of the races, namely Sinhala and Tamil, but because of the language. The Tamils who gladly learned the language of the Englishmen who came from 9000 miles away did not want to learn the language of the Sinhala who have been here for 2500 years.
So please go to sleep, we will wake up when the time is ripe.
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